A first quote from the first pages of the first chapter already shows the dimension of the Europeanisation of Norway:

“All 17 ministries work with EU/EEA matters, and so do most of the subordinate agencies and all 429 municipalities, much of whose work deals with EEA-related matters. EU law has been incorporated to some extent into around 170 of a total of 600 Norwegian statutes and approximately 1 000 Norwegian regulations.”

And a second quote shows the political and democratic implications Norway’s current legal and political relations with the EU have:

“The most problematic aspect of Norway’s form of association with the EU is the fact that Norway is in practice bound to adopt EU policies and rules on a broad range of issues without being a member and without voting rights. This raises democratic problems. Norway is not represented in decision-making processes that have direct consequences for Norway, and neither do we have any significant influence on them. Moreover, our form of association with the EU dampens political engagement and debate in Norway and makes it difficult to monitor the Government and hold it accountable in its European policy.”

According to the introduction, the full report is not (yet) available in English, but it may be very interesting to see a translation at a later stage. So far, the first chapter is already pretty revealing.

Polscieu

Polscieu is written by me, Ronny Patz. With this blog, I attempt to translate between political science and political practice in EU matters, although I have no idea whether this is actually possible. You also find me on Twitter as @ronpatz.